Ada County balked. Now Boise OKs $1.8M for hotel rooms for people experiencing homelessness

After the Ada County Commission declined to provide more funding for people experiencing homelessness, Boise will foot the bill for rooms at a hotel in the West End.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Boise has been paying for Interfaith Sanctuary, a local homeless shelter, to rent rooms at the Red Lion Hotel through a series of federal programs. What started as a place to isolate people in the shelter system who came down with COVID-19 is now used to house medically fragile people and families with children.

On Tuesday, the Boise City Council authorized $1.8 million for the program, which would pay for hotel rooms and on-site staffing by Interfaith until next spring. The city’s expectation is that the year of funding is temporary, and will not be needed once Interfaith opens a new shelter on State Street next year. The city is looking to see if there are funds remaining from the American Rescue Plan Act than can cover the cost, and plans to otherwise spend general funds on the program, Courtney Washburn, Mayor Lauren McLean’s chief of staff, told the Idaho Statesman.

Twenty-five rooms at the hotel are now housing 48 guests, according to a memorandum from Missy Grothaus, of the city’s Purchasing Department. Of those guests, 10 are families with children and 15 are medically fragile people.

“There are additional households in need of and waiting for shelter beds but, due to Ada County’s decision to only provide a few months of short-term funding, Interfaith Sanctuary has not placed them in this location,” Grothaus wrote in the memo.

Last year Boise asked the Ada County Commission to authorize enough federal funds to house people at the hotel until 2024. In December, the Commission instead authorized $697,600, which would cover housing at the hotel until April 15.

”When the Board of Commissioners provided the City of Boise with $697,000, we did so with compassion and respect for individuals experiencing homelessness who needed immediate shelter during the winter months,” said a statement from the commissioners emailed by a spokesperson, Elizabeth Duncan. The four months’ worth of funds were allocated “with a clear understanding that the county would assist with transitioning individuals ... to a more permanent location,” the statement said.

“The county remains available to do so. However, due to the under-utilization of the current rooms at Red Lion, the lack of requested data from the city, and the expense to taxpayers, Ada County will not continue to fund the Red Lion project,” the statement said.

By phone, Duncan told the Statesman the mention of a “permanent location” was in reference to the Boise Rescue Mission, a Christian homeless services organization in the Treasure Valley. She said the commissioners had asked the city for more detailed information about the people who were staying at the hotel.

At a public meeting in March, Ada County Commissioner Ryan Davidson said the county had been “firm” in December about its funds being short-term, and added that paying for the rooms was not “sustainable.” He said the short-term funds should have given the city “enough for them to find new funding or a more permanent solution.”

In 2020, the county provided close to $34,000 in funds to pay for emergency housing for families experiencing homelessness, Duncan said.

Boise Mayor Lauren McLean criticized the county’s decision, saying it would push families “out onto the streets, with no roof over their heads and nowhere else to go.”

McLean said she was “shocked and deeply dismayed” by the commission’s decision to stop funding the rooms, which leaves Boise “solely responsible for addressing countywide issues.”

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In an interview with the Statesman, Jodi Peterson, executive director of Interfaith, said the funding from Boise would fill a “vital” gap.

“Interfaith Sanctuary is very grateful to the City of Boise for coming up with this funding,” she said by phone. The year’s worth of funds should allow Interfaith to provide housing for the people at the Red Lion until Interfaith completes its planned new shelter on State Street.

A lawsuit against the new shelter is pending.

While Interfaith has an existing location in West Downtown for people experiencing homelessness, that shelter is full and cannot accommodate people who need extensive medical care, because such care often cannot be administered in a congregate setting, Peterson said.

Peterson said it has been “nerve-wracking” providing temporary services through a hotel and multiple funding streams, and that the shelter is looking forward to its new shelter becoming a “permanent” solution.

“That is the solution,” she said.

She added that while its funding was uncertain, the shelter elected to not move some people from their waitlist into the Red Lion out of a concern that Interfaith might not have enough resources to continue serving them if the funding dried up. But she said the shelter was “pretty successful” at managing its waitlist during that period.

“The hotel shelter was always designed to serve two populations that are at the highest level of need and are the hardest to accommodate the numbers for,” Peterson said. “Then you add the increase of senior citizens who are falling out onto the street with chronic health issues. This hotel provides a home with that level of care that we cannot deliver at our emergency shelter.”

Rev. Bill Roscoe, CEO and president of Boise Rescue Mission, told the Statesman that his organization has shelter space available. Women and children can stay at its City Light home in Boise, while men stay at the River of Life shelter. Fathers cannot live together with children at those shelters, and Roscoe also said that while the organization’s Recovery Lodge shelter in Nampa serves people with medical issues, it does not provide assisted-living care.

The $1.8 million is on the consent agenda for Tuesday’s council meeting. The city waived its standard practice of requesting bids for costs over $100,000 because Interfaith is the only organization that can provide the needed services, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, Maria Weeg, told the Statesman by phone.